The U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) delivered the next Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) satellite for the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on October 31.

The Air Force’s SBIRS includes a combination of satellites in GEO orbit and hosted payloads in Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO). A robust, new ground control system serves as the nerve center for the entire constellation, collecting large amounts of data from the satellites’ powerful sensors and converting it into actionable reports for defense, intelligence and civil applications.

Lockheed Martin manufactured the SBIRS GEO Flight 4 satellite at its Sunnyvale, California, facility. For its trip to Florida, the satellite rode in a Lockheed Martin-built C-5 Galaxy aircraft from nearby Moffett Federal Air Field in Sunnyvale.

SBIRS GEO Flight 4 follows the Air Force’s GEO Flight 3 satellite, which launched on January 20, 2017, and in March sent its first images back down to Earth, a milestone known as "first light."

The SBIRS development team is led by the Remote Sensing Systems Directorate at the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Sunnyvale, California, is the SBIRS prime contractor, with Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, Azusa, California, as the payload integrator. The 460th Space Wing, Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado, operates the SBIRS system.

About Lockheed MartinHeadquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 97,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.